I was thinking about my all-time favorite books. There’s a lot, and they represent a lot of genres. I have plenty of favorite authors, too, where I’ve read everything they have published. I don’t necessarily want to write like the authors of my favorite books.*

But I have a little list of the writers who make me envious. Writers whose particular genius I try to emulate. Writers who have mastered a thing I want to master. For some it’s their style, their way with a sentence or a metaphor. For some, it’s how they see the world, their particular voice.

A not comprehensive list.

The Margarets

Margaret Atwood

The Rays

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Carver

The Willems

Willem Elsschot

The Vlads

Vladimir Nabokov

The Graces

Grace Paley

The Kurts

Kurt Vonnegut

The Nells

Nell Zink

*Michael Kohlhaas is the book I’ve reread the most in my adult life, with possibly Wuthering Heights in second place. I just finished Harlem Shuffle and loved it. I don’t want to write a book like any of these.